October 2018

I’m sorry to have neglected this site over the past several days. Having a topic I work on (security at the U.S.-Mexico border) become one of the largest news stories in the country for two weeks running has left little time to post thoughts and links here. Also, most of my “rough drafts” have gone […]

Monday, October 29 11:00–12:30 at CSIS: What Lies Ahead as Argentina Navigates a Multifaceted Political and Economic Crisis? (RSVP required). Tuesday, October 30 1:00–3:35 at the American Enterprise Institute: Unraveling the web: Dismantling transnational organized crime networks in the Americas (RSVP required). 2:00–3:30 at the Wilson Center: Presentation by Roberto Campa, Secretary of Mexico’s Department […]

I’m intermittently available all day. (How to contact me) Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself, but I think that interest/hysteria about the “migrant caravan” is flagging, as the number of participants goes down and they start to break up into smaller groups that don’t provide such dramatic visuals. I anticipate spending less time talking to […]

As the latest Central American migrant caravan limps through Chiapas, the first of up to a dozen Mexican states lying between them and the U.S. border, Donald Trump has seized on them as his best hope for maintaining a Republican majority in Congress. He and others on the U.S. right have gone into overdrive with […]

I’ll be hard to reach today. (How to contact me) After another day of public speaking, meetings, and talking pretty constantly on the phone about the “caravan,” I’m more behind on work than ever. It won’t get better today, as I’m spending the afternoon speaking at, and attending, a conference on gangs and migration at […]

A new resource at WOLA’s website provides quick, fact-filled, documented and cited answers to these questions: Why are people leaving? And why are they leaving now? (Short answer: violence, corruption, climate, domestic violence, and economics.) Can Trump cut aid to Central America? (Short answer: no.) Why are people traveling as a caravan? (Short answer: safety in numbers.) […]

I’ll be hard to reach today. (How to contact me) I enjoyed talking to reporters for much of the day yesterday—I always learn a lot—and I’m glad we’re “participating in the debate” on this migrant caravan issue. But my plans for yesterday’s “strategic not tactical” work were obliterated by a few tweets from the reality-TV […]

I’m reachable for much of the afternoon. (How to contact me) I’m in internal WOLA meetings in the morning, and meeting with a think-tank colleague about Colombia in the mid-afternoon. Otherwise I plan to be writing one or two of three different publications about Colombia, and preparing a talk I’m giving at George Mason University on Wednesday. […]

Okay. No visitors in town this week, it’s time to get some stuff done. The plan is to finish full first or final drafts of three different long-form articles about Colombia that I’ve been working on. A report based on our early September field research, a chapter for a colleague’s edited volume (which is very […]

Tuesday, October 23 9:00–11:00 at the Wilson Center: Turmoil in Nicaragua: Is There an End in Sight? (RSVP required). Wednesday, October 24 11:00–12:00 at the Brookings Institution: Financial tools for US policy toward Nicaragua and Venezuela: A conversation with Treasury Assistant Secretary Marshall Billingslea (RSVP required). 1:00–6:00 at George Mason University: Panel on Gangs, Migration, […]

(Even more here) October 19, 2018 Western Hemisphere Regional Ryan Devereaux, “New Documents Bolster Case That Border Patrol Retaliated Against Humanitarian Group” (The Intercept, October 19, 2018). From the beginning, this timeline of events — the release of the No More Deaths report followed by the arrest of one of its longtime volunteers — has […]